All eyes on Bill Shuster, new transportation chairman

A mountain of expectations await incoming House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, who’s taking the gavel from John Mica after two years of legislative success and partisan sniping.

Conservatives want to be sure the Pennsylvania Republican holds the line on taxes and spending. Democrats want to see a return to the bipartisan legacy of his father, Bud, who chaired the committee until 2001. And everyone expects Shuster to come up with a solution to the country’s struggling federal infrastructure funding stream.

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Shuster says he’s up to the tough task and is already separating himself from Mica (R-Fla.), whose hard-line stance on not raising the federal gas tax contrasts with Shuster’s openness. Shuster wants to explore — but not necessarily enact — a bevy of funding opportunities, including the gas tax, more tolling, a miles-traveled fee for vehicles and tying energy production to infrastructure.

He’s also ready for the House to take the mantle of chief transportation-writing chamber of Congress. The House’s reputation took a dive this year when the Senate’s bipartisan maneuvering outpaced Mica’s transportation bill, which Democrats boycotted and failed to attract 218 Republican votes. Shuster said in an interview he has good relationships with both liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and House conservatives, which will help navigate the rocky politics that billion-dollar bills like those he will write are sure to elicit.

“Transportation is not inherently a partisan issue,” Shuster said.

With the White House, however, Shuster may continue Mica’s adversarial posture. Asked if he believes President Barack Obama needs to give formal direction to Congress on long-term legislation, which the White House has yet to do, Shuster said: “They haven’t taken the lead on much of anything around here in this town. So I’m not sure.”

Still, Shuster’s generally been a hit with Democrats. Boxer, in charge of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee that handles the most significant parts of the upper chamber’s transportation legislation, had nothing but praise for the new chairman. Boxer said they have a “very nice working relationship” and have already talked about sitting down to lay groundwork for the next bill, which both lawmakers hope will be longer than the 27-month law signed by Obama this summer.

“It seems like he thinks everything should be on the table, which is good. Because we really have to open our mind to various ways to do this,” Boxer said in an interview.

And while Democrats like Boxer and top House transportation Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) laud Shuster’s flexibility, Republicans in the House believe the new chairman is also a friend of fiscal conservatism. Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.), a vocal negotiator on the most recent transportation law, said Shuster is no squishy Republican.